The junction at Cowcross Street marks the place where for centuries cattle were driven daily to London’s Smithfield Market. Nearby Cock Lane is another street name linked to the meat and poultry trade centred here since the 12th century, although some accounts attribute its origin to it being the only licensed place for sex work in the medieval city.
Soon these will be among the last vestiges of a truly historic site that was central to London life, feeding the city’s people, dispensing justice as a place of public execution and even, in a shameful chapter from the early 19th century, providing a place where a man wishing to avoid a costly divorce could sell his wife.
News that the City of London Corporation is to close Smithfield meat market and Billingsgate fish market for good by 2028, abandoning plans to relocate them to a new £1bn Dagenham Docks development, is slowly being absorbed by Smithfield traders.
They are shocked. “My dad was a butcher here in the 1960s. I was here as a little baby,” said Pat, a trader who said he now did not know what his future would hold. “Many of the people here are local. They’ve only known market life. It’s the end of the work life I know.”
The future of Smithfield had been debated for years, but until the corporation’s decision on Tuesday, traders had expected they would be relocated en-masse to Dagenham, in accordance with plans first mooted in 2019. The corporation would now pay compensation, it said, and help traders find new locations.
“It’s just dragged on for too long. And now they’re saying its too expensive to move,” Pat said.
A vibrant, strong community, with friendships forged over years of working alongside each other at the bustling wholesale night market, looks likely be broken up. “I suppose, now, each will to go their own way,” he added.
Originally known as “Smeeth-field” – the Old English word for smooth, to describe the open area west of the Fleet River – a market was first established here in 1133, surviving the Great Fire of 1666 and continuing as a livestock market, with 220,000 cattle and 1.5 million sheep annually being driven through the narrow and crowded thoroughfares at the heart of London by the middle of the 19th century.
Victorian Londoners became concerned at the poor hygiene conditions and surrounding squalor. “It was market morning,” wrote Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist. “The ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with filth and mire … the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squeaking of pigs … the shouts, oaths and quarrelling on all sides … rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene.”
An act of parliament was passed in 1852, which provided for a new cattle market at Copenhagen Fields, Islington, and in 1860 the present wholesalers was established in Charterhouse Street by the Metropolitan Meat and Poultry Market Act. The corporation was on Wednesday applying to parliament for a bill to de-marketise Smithfield and Billingsgate sites, absolve it of responsibility for running the markets, and to release the sites for new purposes.
In the 1990s, the east and west market buildings were renovated to meet the current hygiene standards. Norman, 80, who has worked at Smithfield for 64 years but now works just because “it’s something to do”, remembers the changes. Once an open market, stalls were now operating behind thick plastic screens, which changed the atmosphere, he said.
The impact of the London congestion zone had a major impact, too. “It’s very different now. People have to come earlier to avoid the congestion charge. Parking is difficult. It’s not the same. Everyone wants to get away before 6.30am.” He doesn’t quite believe Smithfield has finally had its day. “No, I don’t think so,” he said, with optimism. “They’ve been saying it for years, haven’t they?”
Jackie, who has worked at the market for 40 years, believes if the closure goes ahead it will be the “end of an era and a way of life”. She was stunned by the decision. Many people only learned of the news when they turned up for work on Tuesday night. “We were under the impression we were all going to move,” she said. It will be an emotional wrench. “It’s the banter, the friendships.”
The nearby Fox & Anchor, a pub and bespoke hotel, dates back to 1897. But a public house has stood on the site for centuries, serving generations of market butchers and porters with early morning breakfasts and a pint, as pictures on its walls testify.
Market workers still popped in for a Guinness, especially on a Friday, said Veronica Czarzisca, a deputy manager at the pub. “It’s so sad,” she said. She knew of plans to relocate the market to Dagenham, but did not realise they had been abandoned. “We needs to give those guys a hug when they next come in. I feel really emotional, now.”
Henry Pollard, chair of the City of London Corporation’s markets board, said: “A sad day for me and other supporters of the markets with hundreds of years of service extinguished. I still believe in the positive impact that markets provide to our communities but respect my colleagues’ decision.”